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East Blue - Dawn Island
Goa Kingdom – Foosha Village
Luffy and Chico approached the coast of Dawn Island, where they could already see a crowd waiting for them. Someone had likely spotted a Sea King pulling a boat and alerted everyone, thinking it might be Luffy returning home.
After docking the boat and releasing Chico, Luffy was immediately embraced by Makino as soon as he stepped onto the pier.
"Thank God you're okay. I was so worried that something had happened to you, Luffy. Why did it take so long?", Makino asked, hugging him tightly.
"I found an island that was a good training spot, so I decided to stay there and train for these three years."
"I even called your grandfather, asking him to look for you. He mobilized a contingent of marines to search for you, but no one had found you until now, so I feared the worst. Thank God you're okay", Makino said, pulling back from the hug.
"I'm fine, Makino. Besides, I'm much stronger than before. I doubt anything in the East Blue could be a threat to me right now", Luffy said, flexing his muscles and showing off.
"I see you've grown a lot, brat. What have you been eating these past three years to get this big?" Dadan, who had just arrived with the rest of the gang, asked.
"I ate a lot of meat, milk, and grass, also known as vegetables", Luffy replied, not realizing she was just teasing him.
After greeting all the villagers who had come to welcome him, everyone moved to Makino's bar, where Luffy recounted everything that had happened during his journey, of course, leaving out everything about the ruined temple.
Luffy stayed on the island for another week, which he used to get Shanks and Garp's contact numbers from Makino. He also bought an encyclopedia of the Akuma no Mi cataloged in the black market of the city for future reference.
With that, he discovered what fruit Lampião had eaten; it was the Mythical Zoan Inu Inu no Mi – Model: Fenrir.
At some point during his stay, he may have carried out another small robbery on the kingdom's nobles, let's say he only stole enough to have 700 million Berries in his treasure again.
Almost every day, he spoke with Reiju for a while using the encrypted Den Den Mushi she gave him.
Before leaving, Luffy had a conversation with Chico, the Sea King, where he asked him to protect Foosha Village and its inhabitants.
As always, Chico swore to protect the village from any potential danger, even with his life if necessary.
After saying goodbye to everyone, Luffy set off on his journey to fulfill his dreams, this time alone, just him and his small boat, which had even less space now due to all the musical equipment he had previously bought.
But that didn't mean he would be alone for long. After all, he left three months before the canon started specifically to recruit a crew member: Nami.
At the moment, she was the closest friend in a terrible situation, so Luffy wanted to recruit her early.
Leaving three months early, he intended to play detective, trying to track her down.
The first thing he did was get a list of all the pirates with wanted posters in the East Blue and the places they frequented or where they were last seen. Knowing from the canon information that she had already stolen from most of the pirates in the East Blue and was close to wanting to go to the Grand Line, he narrowed the list down to five pirates (those with the highest bounties).
For the next two months, he wandered from island to island, making friends, sometimes helping them defend against pirate attacks, and most importantly, gathering information.
From his list of five, he had already encountered and defeated two of these pirates. Yes, he wanted to keep an eye on them until Nami arrived to rob them, but these guys happened to start attacking the villages and islands where he was staying, so he had to beat them and their crews for trying to hurt his new friends.
The last three on his list were a random unnamed pirate, Alvida, and Buggy.
And here we are, with a small island under attack by a small pirate fleet of five ships led by this random unnamed pirate.
Luffy, who had arrived on this island two days ago, decided to help defend the coast when the attack began.
So while the pirate ships fired their cannons toward the town, Luffy jumped and easily caught the cannonballs with one hand, letting the force of the shot spin him in the air. When he was in the right position, he threw the ball back at the ship, creating sonic booms with his throw.
His shots completely tore through the areas they hit, and this kept happening until one of his shots must have hit a spot where some idiot probably stored gunpowder and alcohol together, causing an explosion in part of the ship shortly after the shot hit.
Luffy then noticed a young red-haired girl with a sooty face on the deck of the ship that had just exploded, carrying a large bag on her back.
=Scene Break=
Today was supposed to be a normal day for Nami. She had been observing these pirates for a few days, and today, using the attack on this island as a distraction, she would steal as much treasure as possible from their main ship.
She felt like a monster for not helping the people of the island, but what could she do? She didn't even have the strength to help her own homeland.
The heist was going perfectly. She had infiltrated the ship easily, reached where they kept their treasures and was about to leave when an explosion occurred near where she was, almost catching her, and soon after, a crew member arrived at the scene. As soon as he spotted her, he opened his mouth to shout.
Not giving the pirate time to make a sound, Nami extended her bo staff and struck the pirate's head hard, knocking him to the ground. She then took the opportunity to run as fast as she could.
As soon as she stepped onto the deck, she came face to face with three more pirates.
"Hey, who are you? I've never seen your face before. Are you new to the crew?", one of the pirates asked, not suspecting anything (probably because he was stupid).
"Yes, the Captain recruited me on the last island", Nami said, mentally thanking God for these guys being idiots.
"Oh, welcome to the crew then. You made a great choice joining us", one of the pirates said.
"Well, it was nice meeting you guys, but I need to find the Captain", Nami said, trying to find an excuse to leave.
"Oh, if it helps, the Captain's on the island", one of the pirates said, pointing to the island.
"So, if you'll excuse me", Nami said, trying to walk away.
And she almost succeeded, if not for the pirate she had knocked out earlier running in with a bloody head just before she could prepare a boat to leave.
He shouted to his companions as soon as he saw her, "What are you idiots doing? Get her!"
"Huh? But isn't she the new recruit?"
"Of course not, you imbeciles! She's the one who just blew up the ship", the pirate with the bloody head shouted angrily at his companions.
Finding herself surrounded by these four, Nami extended her bo staff, ready to fight, but suddenly a guy her age simply appeared in front of her, grabbed her, and the next instant, the two were in a luxurious room on the ship, probably the Captain's quarters.
"Who are you? And what just happened?", she asked cautiously, watching Luffy explore the room.
"Hi, my name is Monkey D. Luffy. What's yours?", Luffy turned to her with a smile and extended his hand to shake hers.
"Nami. Anyway, we need to get out of here before they find us, or worse, before their Captain finds us", she said, peeking out the door to see if the coast was clear.
"Wow, is this Captain Nami that scary?", Luffy asked, scratching his head.
"I'm Nami, you idiot! The pirate's name is... I don't know the Captain's name, okay? The wanted poster just says 'Random Nameless Pirate'", Nami said, already finding it difficult to deal with Luffy.
"Sorry, shishishi, I got the names mixed up", Luffy said, rubbing his nose.
"No problem. Now, what the hell just happened? I was on the deck, then you showed up out of nowhere, and the next moment we're here, in a completely different place", she said with a sigh.
"I was defending the town from the cannon attacks by throwing the cannonballs back at the ships when one of the balls I threw made a part of this ship explode. Then I saw you cornered by those pirates, about to be attacked, so I came to save you."
"So that explosion was your fault? And by the way, I didn't need help; I had everything under control."
"Hrmm, sure, I believe you. By the way, what were you doing on a pirate ship in the middle of an attack?"
"I'm a pirate thief, so I'm robbing them. Anyway, shouldn't you be defending the town or something?"
"Nah, they'll be fine. I've already destroyed the pirates' cannons, and the town has a Marine base, so either these pirates will be captured in the end, or they'll be forced to retreat", Luffy said, rummaging through the room, looking for something interesting.
"Wait, if they retreat, we're screwed. Come on, we have to get out of here."
"Why the rush? Relax, Tangerine. I'm strong, remember I told you I was throwing the cannonballs back at the pirates?"
"Yeah, but what do you firing them with a cannon have to do with being strong? And why did you call me Tangerine?", Nami asked, confused.
"Uh, I think you misunderstood. I wasn't using a cannon, I was throwing the cannonballs they were firing at the town back with my hands."
"And I called you Tangerine because your hair is red, and you smell like tangerines", Luffy added, making Nami blush slightly at the thought of him smelling her.
"I doubt it. There's no way someone can shoot cannonballs with their bare hands", Nami said, choosing to ignore the comment about the nickname.
"It's actually pretty easy. You just have to jump when the cannonball gets close, then catch it with your hand and let the force spin you around in the air. Once you're at the right angle, you quickly aim and throw it back with all your strength", he said, gesturing with his hands as he tried to explain the move.
Nami put her hand on her face and sighed. She then turned to Luffy, who was rummaging through some drawers, and said, "You said you were strong, right?"
Without looking up, Luffy responded, "Yes."
"So, how about you join me? It won't be long before I head to the Grand Line. You're strong, I know how to navigate. If we team up, we'll make a ton of money robbing pirates there. So, what do you say?"
Luffy looked at her and asked, "You know how to navigate?"
"You won't find anyone better than me in all of East Blue", Nami said proudly of her skills.
"Ohh, then join my pirate crew."
"What? No, I wouldn't have invited you if I knew you were a pirate."
"Come on, don't be difficult. Join our crew."
"I already said no. What part of 'I'm a pirate thief' didn't you understand? Besides, you don't even seem like a pirate", Nami said, observing Luffy.
"And what should a pirate look like? Is it because I'm handsome?"
"Ha ha, no, it's not because you're handsome. You're too kind and childish to be a pirate. Pirates are monsters, they attack islands, plunder, kill, enslave, all because they think it's fun or because they think they can do it without consequences", Nami said, her voice laced with disdain and anger.
"Not the pirates I know. They don't attack islands, plunder, kill, or enslave. I think you only have that opinion because you've never met someone like me or them."
Nami stared, stunned, at the childish boy who had started rummaging through a chest at the foot of the bed.
Taking out a small box from the chest and opening it, Luffy exclaimed, "Look what we have here!"
Pulling out an Akuma no Mi from the chest and grabbing his encyclopedia to identify it, Luffy said, "Let me see."
He then stopped at a page and said, "Here, Paramecia, Saizu Saizu no Mi, allows the user to alter the size of anything they touch, apparently for an indefinite time. It also allows the user to change their own size at will, becoming as small as an ant or as big as a giant. Cool, good thing it had a picture of this fruit."
"What are you talking about? What's so special about that fruit?", Nami asked, snapping out of her daze.
"This is a Akuma no Mi. It gives powers to whoever eats it, but in exchange, the sea turns its back on you, so you lose the ability to swim and just sink. But you can gain resistance, so when you enter the water, you just can't use the fruit's powers", Luffy said, starting to ramble.
"I thought Akuma no Mi was just a myth."
"No, they're very real. For example, I ate the Gomu Gomu no Mi and became a rubber man", Luffy said, stretching his cheek to demonstrate since he no longer wore his Seastone bracelet all the time.
Suddenly, the door burst open, and a man with an eyepatch entered, surrounded by pirates, and began to say, "Well, well, what do we have here? My name is Captain—"
He was then interrupted by the author, who said, "This chapter is already longer than I wanted, so no lines for you, Nameless Pirate."
Luffy then knocked them all out with a controlled burst of Conqueror's Haki, leaving only him and Nami standing.
Nami, unfazed, said, "Uh, what just happened?"
"Well, I told you I'm strong. Anyway, let's get out of here, Tangerine."
=Scene Break=
In front of the two was a wrecked, sinking boat, it was Nami's boat. Luffy then turned to her and said, "So, need a ride?"
Nami looked at him for a moment before saying, "Ugh, fine, but only for a while."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------(AN: 2,448 Words)
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